I consulted with an immigration consultant firm based in Toronto for the Express Entry. First they charged me US$ 400 for consulting and providing information about the various methods to get enough points to be picked up.
Now I am ready to apply for Express Entry. To do the applying of EE, PNP and all the tracking, up to getting PR, they are quoting me a fee of US$ 6500. It is quite a high amount. I wanted to check with you folks if the EE process can be done without consultant? Or are there consultants who cost less?
Why do you need consultant when there is movnorth? The purpose of this community is to share our experiences and apply our own. Consultant fee you are referring is too high. They don’t guarantee any special entry. You have to go through all the stages yourself; prove your mettle and cross cut off score.
My advice would be to handle the entire process by yourself. It is quite straightforward in my experience. As Sudhir mentioned above, the most important part of the process is to clear the cut off score and there is nothing the lawyer can do to help you there. You just need to know how to clear the cut off score (which is something you can easily figure out by yourself with some basic Google search).
This advice is based on my personal experience (not that I hired a lawyer). I got picked in a November 2019 draw and submitted my application early January. While I handled the process myself, a good friend of mine who got picked and submitted the application at the same time as me had hired a consultant/lawyer in Canada. We stayed constantly in touch throughout the process and traded information with each other.
Based on talking to my friend, I think the only value the lawyer adds is help you verify any document/information before uploading something on PR application website. Other than that, they are of no help for some of the non-trivial aspects of the process like getting police certificate from Indian consulate or recommending the right place to get the fingerprints for FBI police certificate (so fingerprint quality is good). My friend used to consult me for advice on these topics and I in turn looked to movnorth for advice. Also, I found it a bit cumbersome that she did not have access to her own PR application credentials and had to go through the lawyer to check the status, etc.
So honestly, I just don’t think 6500$ (or paying anything at all) for a lawyer for this process is worth it unless you are paranoid that you will get some document wrong and want a second set of eyes. I think most documents are straightforward and there are enough instructions given in the PR website to make the requirements clear.
Thanks Sudhir and Vijay. I am used to the US H1B or green card process which is impossible to do without immigration lawyers and consultants, so I had assumed the same for Canada. I will proceed to apply by myself then.
USD 400 for telling you how to get points, IMHO, is a total rip-off. A paralegal could have explained it to you in 1 hr and that should not cost $400.
You don’t need a consultant to apply. Anyone with a high-school education should be able to complete the application by themselves. The UI is also pretty good.
Just create an account and follow the steps. If you get stuck, ask here.
Spend some time on this 4 websites. You will have everything you need for the Express Entry process. Unless you do not have time and have enough money to give to a consultant.
I knew exactly where you were coming the moment I read your post. I feel you, many of us have been through the same process (US -> Canada) and were able to successfully immigrate without having to engage a legal representative.
This process was a breeze compared to any application I’ve done in the US.
For any questions you have, a simple google search will fetch you answers from the hundreds of other people who’ve made it through. Obviously we can’t assume that all their answers are accurate, but this provides enough guidance for you to complete your application.
I have hired consultant thinking that they know each and every step of the Canadian immigration, but to my surprise that is not the case. I was not able to come out of it as I had already paid them the whole amount. I realized that I made wrong decision hiring them.
They did some major blunders in the application processing and data entries which I luckily caught and saved myself from issues. I would have missed the PNP opportunity due to their half knowledge and misguidance.
I lost confidence within 2 weeks and started referring forums like movnorth.com and canadavisa.com for guidance. I am monitoring each and every step closely by myself double checking everything.
In my opinion, I would NOT recommend going for consultant as forums are more helpful than the consultant I hired.
As you are already aware of the US H1b immigration documentation, you can easily complete the express entry and you have more knowledgeable friends here on these forums just in case of any clarifications.
Youtube is also very helpful as there are videos showing step by step process to submit express entry.
Please check this video for Express Entry Profile Creation
Hello All,
Apologies for the long post. @awesomenorth@ak45@vijay4454@sudhir@dousedfire@movingnorth2020
After reading the above conversation I think I landed on the right page to ask my queries. I have a different scenario and seeking your help. I hired a consultant in Oct 2017 and paid him 50K INR and the total amount I have to pay is 125K INR. They created my profile but the email id with they created account is consultant id. I got NOI from Ontario in Jan2020 for which I submitted the application by myself with my email id because consultant was asking for more money. That OINP got approved and I received ITA also in the recent draw. Now what I realized is it is not worth paying to consultant to submit the application because till now they didn’t help me as I expected. They didn’t help me even to choose the right NOC and didn’t review my reference letter properly. Also, they misguided me a lot about the IELTS score and Visa processing time. According to them, I can get PPR in 25 days also and if I get less than 8777 in IELTS then also my CRS ll be impacted by 4-5 score only, which I later got to know that it is not correct.
I have the ITA pdf and Ontario nomination certificate with me. Also, I have the details of my EE profile number.
Now I want to know whether I can submit my documents for PR application by myself if I don’t have the credentials to log in to the EE profile. I don’t know whether it is possible or not because I don’t know even how that portal looks like. Is the portal for EE profile and application submission is same? Is it possible to create a new account and link my existed profile? Is it possible to change email id in the EE profile if the consultant agreed to give me my profile back?
Contact Canada Immigration/Express Entry support and explain your case to them and see if you can take over your profile with your email id.
Negotiate with your consultant saying that 50K is good enough for what they have done till now and ask them to hand over the account. Use their mistakes as a reason for terminating the contract.
I hired a consultant in my case and, honestly, I have just realized how little his value is considering how far I have progressed up until now. In fact I believe I would have even progressed better if I had sought the help and knowledge of those who have done this themselves, e.g. tapping from the wealth of experience in this community. To give you a hint, I just got my GCMS note, of course through him as typically they (consultants) will not even give you the privilege to have the details for accessing your files and to my amazement he could not really explain what the details of the GCMs notes meant, I had to go researching myself to decide some of the entry.
I have just joined the community less than an hour ago and to be honest, I was forced to go searching and stumbled on this valuable community due to the lack of help (or may be lack of expertise and knowledge) from my so called consultant. The truth is, once they’ve collected their fees they really don’t care. So from.my experience, I’ll advice anyone who plans to apply for any kind of immigration to take the time to research, seek help from those who have already done the same, and be confident in themselves. I wish I knew what I know now.
I lost my retainer $995,but glad it was only that. I found them to be extremely little value. They were regurgitating exact questions found in EE and PNP application, which any of us can (and eventually did) do by ourselves.
Ask questions here as you do your application. If we do not know, you can still go to complete the application based on the amount of info you gather from here.
That is all one can do.
Save your $ for the actual application and PNP fees as applicable.
We did our application ourselves. The gov website has all the information.I had joined various forums on to keep a track of CRS scores and the cut offs.The only time consuming part was uploading the documents in the specified format.If we had any questions we checked on the forums and the GCMS notes were really helpful too. USD 6500 is absolutely not worth it.
In my opinion a consultant would be helpful if you worked in the military in your home country or were a part of some type of police force or rescue force. Depending on the country, that job could cause misunderstandings.
My profile was created by consultant on Consultant portal of IRCC. To get the profile, i have created a new GCKEY account and linked the EE profile to my GCKEY account. Later i have submitted a Form through WebForm to remove the consultant from my profile. It has worked and i have full access to my application and consultant doesn’t have. Let me know if you have any further query.
Express Entry process provides a pathway to permanent residence for skilled workers in Canada or all over the world. To know more, you can also visit Express Entry for a clear and proper guide.